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Missouri Is Only One Vote Shy Of Insurrection Insanity

I’ve tried to avoid talking about it, but I can’t anymore.

Missouri, the state I’ve called home for more than twenty years now, the state that is in a tax-cutting, service-reducing race to the bottom against my old home state of Kansas, is an embarrassment to anyone with an IQ that exceeds air-conditioned room temperature.

And that embarrassment comes at the hands of extremist Republicans who, because there is a lot of apathy and even more electoral laziness in this state, overwhelmingly control the state legislature, even though, for now, we have a Democratic governor.

I speak of a successful vote—I said: successful vote—by the Missouri House to override Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of one of the most obviously unconstitutional and one of the stupidest bills in the history of governance by otherwise sane members of the Homo sapiens species.

As the Associated Press summarized the bill—which late Wednesday night failed by only one vote—one bleeping vote!—to get the needed two-thirds margin in the Missouri Senate to override—it is breathtaking in its affront to our federalist system of government and in its indifference to the Civil War in our past, not to mention a profound indifference to civilization:

The legislation declares any federal policies that “infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms” shall be invalid in Missouri. It allows state misdemeanor charges to be brought against federal agents who try to enforce those laws or against anyone who publishes the identity of a gun owner.

The AP continued:

Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat, also raised concerns last week about the ramifications of a potential veto override. He said a court likely would strike down the nullification provision but could leave intact other sections of the bill that could potentially prevent local police from cooperating with federal authorities on crimes involving guns. He said the bill also could open Missouri police to potential lawsuits from criminals if they refer gun-related cases to federal authorities.

The Missouri state legislature is one step closer to accomplishing something that’s never been done: passing a law that will technically not only let residents own a machine gun, but also arrest federal agents if they try to take it away.

The Springfield News-Leader added this:

Democrats who spoke in opposition said the bill would “shred” the First Amendment, criminalizing the actions of journalists involved in the publication of the names of gun owners.

Locally, where all of our state legislators are rabidly right-wing and thus out of their minds, I suppose we can sort of praise Joplin senator Ron Richard—the Republican Majority Floor Leader in the Missouri Senate—who voted against overriding the governor’s veto on Wednesday night, except that Ron Richard, stupidly, voted for the bill originally. Here’s how the Joplin legislator, who wants to be governor of the state someday soon, explained his unexplainable position on this ghastly piece of legislation:

“The attorney general made some valid points about its constitutionality,” he said. “And after reflecting, reading it again, and talking to a lot of people including those in law enforcement, I’m not sure Missouri needs to be the only state in the union to impose this unconstitutional bill.”

He’s “not sure”? Oh, I guess that means if other states join us, Richard would have no problem with machine guns all over the place, and putting FBI agents and journalists in the hoosegow. But he wasn’t done explainin’:

Richard said officials in law enforcement with whom he talked were uneasy with a law that would nullify federal gun laws in the state and would make it a crime for federal agents to enforce them in Missouri.

“They said, ‘You’re going to force us to arrest an FBI agent,’” he said. “That’s not going to work.”

You think? You don’t think state cops arresting federal cops for being federal cops is going to work? Brilliant, Senator Richard. What a brilliant insight. You should be Missouri’s governor with a brain like that. More:

The senator, who earlier was speaker in the House of Representatives, said he did not regret votes to pass the initial measure, which he said “makes a statement the feds need to stay out of state business.”

Yeah, that’ll show those meddlesome feds! Dammit, if you come near Missouri again, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll let citizens shoot you with their machine guns! And the senator, who earlier noted the bill was “unconstitutional,” nevertheless said “he did not regret” voting for it in the first place. Wow.

It’s insanity. I feel like I’m living inside of Franz Kafka’s worst nightmare. This state is falling into a black hole of right-wing reactionary ridiculousness and every single one of my local representatives is contributing to it. And there isn’t a damn thing that can be done about it as long as Democrats, and other sane and civilized people, sit at home in large numbers on election day and let these people ruin our state.

By the way, a supporter of this insanity, Senator Brian Nieves, says “we’ll be back to visit it again”:

8 Comments

Wow, Duane. I’ve pondered this for a couple of hours now and I hardly know what else to say because you’ve said it already. You did mention the Civil War, and that’s what it seems like we are edging toward with this insane, self-injuring rebellious spasm. Missouri is as much the border state today as it was a century and a half ago.

Just think, Jim, how bad the state would be if it weren’t for St. Louis and Kansas City and the Democrats who get elected there (there’s also one Democrat from Springfield, as I recall). This would be April of 1861 all over again.

Andrew Jackson never quite resolved the issue, since a compromise was reached that allowed the Calhouns of the South to save face. And Old John C.’s spirit, if not necessarily his name, is alive and well in the Tea Party today.

ansonburlingame

I commented yesterday on this blog but it did not “go up”. Will try again.

I support far more regulation of guns, actually a ban on all privately owned hand guns. Thus I agree with Duane’s attempts to achieve SOME better form of gun control.

However, as I said yesterday, the gun lobby is very powerful all over the nation, not just in Missouri. For now I don’t know how to effectively combat that lobby. My guess is we will have to see a lot more dead people in America, people killed by privately owned guns, before that political dynamic will change.

Someday, in a far more humane world, we may see a change in the 2nd Amendment as well. But not in my lifetime is my guess. Sure if Dems “ruled” America such changes might accelerate. But my goodness, look what we woud have to put up with on many other issues in America, just to gain more control of private guns!!!

I don’t agree that there should be “a ban on all privately owned hand guns,” Anson. A gun in the home, for instance, while making the home less safe statistically, can still be a way for folks to “feel” safer, which ain’t nothing to a lot of folks. But besides that, as you know, there is exactly no political or popular will to enact such a ban, nor would it be possible to enforce it uniformly.

The Second Amendment does need clarification, and, like you, I don’t see such a possibility anytime in my lifetime.

And remember that the lesser of two evils is, especially in the case of the Republican Party, still evil.

How much longer will people tolerate this right-wing insanity? How much longer will the “99%” let legislators in the states and the federal government continue to be bought by billionaires whose only goal is enriching their already inflated coffers? After reading the Ryan Budget Plan, and knowing that every Republican in the House voted for it, I wonder what it will take to get these self-serving oligarchs out of government.

Probably at least another election cycle or two, Jim. The problem on our side is getting our voters to the polls. We shouldn’t have to fight so hard to get people to see that if they don’t vote, the radicals on the right will win, but the reality is that we do have to fight to get them to go to the trouble of registering and then voting. Until we have enough “extra” voters to overcome the existing apathy among those who would tend to vote for Democrats, the “self-serving oligarchs” will keep on winning.